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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 3, 1993)
Opinion g e ptember 3,1993 ;ic" abet 11 fhe status ig HouS e iip David jt the aU' ig to be a 'emocrats for it and r>i partisa 11 cused by; ord hafd 7 the and s e and Mn n against his state- vide a re called the ed "Save . Must be ng state- .9 million PRO ^ CON Should America grant jtizenship t o U.S.-born Uldren of illegal aliens? rcxP e but - L i^v&eiook ^ le short 1 incident , rvof ■erica d investi- .^g from oth- . ierin . iiichitbe- lived in. jt ts a private er(0 ?r AssoCi- ;jrate If!wo opposing positions and 1 on thSjpf^g^jj. anc j stance ocial seilpijtjQjH j n United States j old be entitled to and subject ffiliatod iiebenefits and responsibilities D f 11 ^s na ti° n regardless of who in admit- are/ where they came there. Ur how they got here. er ' . | ienerally, Americans tend to Hospital/ snieo j: fpQgj. compassion- ited to US j(j zens 0 f fhe world when it ne of the helping foreigners, but ain froUJ ; eneros ify seems to dry up jrvices at ^gfopics 0 f money and a 1 hng population arise. We don't have enough room j liny more of these people," [msto be the favorite excuse in Jahington, but it really doesn't be that way. it does this country's pop- ion consist of anyway? This sblicisnot and never was an tsocial club of white Euro- aswho traversed the Atlantic Jbought this place fair and «. Most of the original set- (illegal aliens) were outlaws religious outcasts willing to their lives for a new begin- J The citizens at the time had hoice but to accept the new msor fight them. We wiped mout, stole their land and fiv open the doors to the rest [lie world. fen the rest of the world wed up, their American-born iesbecame citizens. So how we deny citizenship to any bom on this soil? The fetus- illegal aliens are unaware of parents' legal status — not lention immigration quotas. ' are we "full" of people or 'ething? If Japan is "full," we : Jinly aren't. Our nation can many times the current pop- ion, just not with the current ‘low of tax revenue. >ow, I'm all for everyone ' ighis or her own weight in as part of national responsi- ,but taxes are paid by citi- Fbot illegal aliens. Pending Nation or not, illegal aliens md work in this country 'out paying taxes, and in lycases, they receive govern- ■1 services as well, hide from erecting a 30-foot, 'led Berlin-esque wall along Entire Mexican border, there's ooway to effectively thwart Wd-be immigrants. So, let's pend countless millions of •rs in futile bureaucratic pa- muffling to determine whose is legal and whose is not. lould just continue to grant ■nship to all babies born on Jrican soil, regardless of the tots'legal status, and allow Uowork and pay taxes, lot only that, but their parents ild be granted green cards at 'fry least. Essentially, our itry's immigration "prob- ' stem from misappropria- ofgovernment services and furthering negative atti- Stowards illegal aliens and children. ^Stanford is a graduate philoso phy major ROBERT VASQUEZ Columnist « t! T he Unit ed States of fers a host of opportu nities to a very select group of people who take the ini tiative. These peo ple are enti tled to citi zenship and the ac company ing benefits if they accomplish two minor tasks: Enter the country ille gally and bear a child. "Yes," the United States seems to say, "YOU TOO can break our laws and undermine our legal sys tem, and we will reward YOU and YOUR CHILDREN with these wonderful cash and prizes!!! Pat, why don't you tell them what these nice folks can expect when they get here!" Millions of illegal immigrants flood into the United States each year unconcerned that they are breaking the law. It is not laws which fill their minds as they dodge the men enforcing the laws. Instead, they are thinking of the opportunities awaiting them here. By now they know there are no fabled streets of gold, but they do know all too well that once they ar rive on U.S. soil, the government is hard pressed to do anything about it. The laws which dictate the de portation procedures of illegal im migrants often reward the immi grants for their illegal efforts and simply punish the United States. It seems ironic that a nation populated primarily by immi grants and their descendants is now feeling the sting of immigra tion, but the illegal immigration undermines the nation's ability to sustain the standard of living which first drew immigrants. And now the nation is retaliat ing. One California legislator is working to change the current laws which allow — indeed en courage and reward — immigrants who ignore the laws of the very land they seek to inhabit. What's wrong with allowing these people to seek a better future for their children? Who can it hurt? Well, while breaking the law appears to benefit the children bom to the illegal immigrants, mil lions of U.S. citizens and those who chose to enter this nation legally are finding the price of these crimes painfully expensive. The state of California is one of the hardest hit by the wave of ille gal immigrants flooding the na tion. One magazine reported that last year alone more than 100,000 illegal aliens moved into Califor nia. They and their American-bom children accounted for up to 90 percent of California's population explosion last year. How is the state to provide for the hundreds of thousands of ille gal aliens and their children? The governor's office says that the im migrant population cost the state $5 million more than it paid in tax es. That translates to lower income and higher expenses for California. Those immigrants who seek the American dream, faded and weary as it may be, should be rewarded and encouraged to do so. There are procedures set up to aid them in their plight. But the people who seek to circumvent those laws and undermine the system which was set up to help them should be treated accordingly. And by no means should they be rewarded. Robert Vasquez is a senior journalism major The Battalion Page 15 Span: bars, water and funeral homes Students learn more than language with Study Abroad I 've just had all four of my wisdom teeth removed. Being un able to leave the house due to the effects of some semi-hallucino genic pain killer or even entertain myself by eating solid foods. I've decided to reflect upon my summer study abroad experi ence in Spain and fi nally write the column The Battalion request ed some time ago. Originally, I was going to write some didactic article about how America really is THE superpower beyond simple economic and nuclear terms and that we really should worry more about China becoming our next big competitor. Then I changed my mind and decided it might be more interesting to talk about what I learned in Spain besides Spanish. Primarily, and most importantly, it came to my attention that one cannot stay out all night a couple of school nights a week, not be prepared for class and still make an A. Needless to say, when the reality check came, I was sorely disappointed. The other stuff I learned was more ran dom. For instance: the Cheetos in Spain are really nasty. They taste like they were made with moldy toe cheese. Also, I'll bet you thought picante sauce was a Spanish thing. Think again! The only restaurant that had ever heard of Mexican food charged us $2.75 for their idea of "nachos": six tortilla chips covered in ketchup. Everybody smokes, eats ice cream and they take their dogs everywhere — including restaurants. Cars in Europe are smaller than Mazda Miatas, but they somehow seat four and get an average of 45 miles to the gallon. We got to see all our favorite TV shows, but dubbed in Spanish of course. I got a big kick out of watching "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and listening to him rap in Spanish while the other characters referred to him as "Weel"! Salamanca, the town we stayed in, is about the size of the Bryan-College Station metroplex and by some esti mates has about 3000 bars. In fact, Spain has more bars than the rest of Europe combined. Every meal we had included hard white bread as an appetizer — except breakfast, for which hard white bread was the meal. The prices at Pizza Hut, Burger King, and Mc Donalds were inflated — Happy Meals are $3.60 in Madrid — but the cool thing is you can get a beer instead of a coke. Speaking of beer, the drinking age is 16, but the general rule is: if you can get your chin — or more importantly your money — over the bar, you can buy. I saw many a kid drinking who looked about 12-years-old. Salamanca, the town we stayed in, is about the size of the Bryan-CoUege Station metroplex and by some estimates has about 3000 bars and clubs. In fact, Spain has more bars than the rest of Europe combined. Our ? rofs would hand out free drink passes on hursdays at school. And the vending ma chine at school — like virtually every vend ing machine I saw — had beer in it. Often, it was cheaper to buy alcohol than water. Yes, you are charged for water in Eu rope — a hard lesson in traveling. The neat thing was that we could drink Evian and 1 Yt- rier constantly without appearing preten tious. The most expensive glass of water I saw was the one my friend bought in the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca for $2.50. By the way — don't try to pay a tab with your American Express card. Practically no one in Europe accepts it, except the tourist shops. Visa really is everywhere you want to be. On a more morbid note, I learned some thing about funerals, having lived across the street from a funeral home — which was cat ty-comer to three bars. Spanish funerals have a wake the night before at which the friends and relatives of the deceased stay up all night drinking and partying with the body. My housemother told me that several ex change students confused the frequent wakes for a club and tried to mingle. With all the night life in Salamanca, that's not surprising. It's quite a town. Lynn Booher is a sophomore English and psychol ogy major GUEST COLUMN LYNN BOOHER Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views of the editorial board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other Battalion staff members, the Texas A&M student body, regents, administration, faculty or staff. Columns, guest columns and letters express the opinions of the authors. The Battalion encourages letters to the editor and will print as many as space allows. Letters must be 300 words or less and include the author's name, class, and phone number. We reserve the right to edit letters and guest columns , for length,, style, and accuracy. Contact the opinion editor for Information on submitting V- guest ebluhatisL . • Address letters tor- The Battalion - Mail Call : tf&Reed MeDamte C #j- : Mail stop 1111 vV-- .. Texas A&M University : College Slatioh, TX Fays CIA documents reveal truth behind Cold War The New York Times reported on Sunday, Aug. 29, that the CIA is preparing to open its files and to provide information about its covert activities during the Cold War period. This information should be of special interest to the A&M community, since Texas A&M enthusiastically supported the Cold War and provided military personnel to help armed struggles brought about. The article cites a memorandum from 1954 which makes the CIA responsible for creating an atmosphere of fear and uncer tainty here in this country in order to win ap proval for the policy of confrontation with the Soviet Union. It spread fear of a Soviet Union which, as we know now, was groundless. The CIA and its political allies here in the U.S. were also responsible for virulent anti-commu nism, the kind of anti-communism represent ed by the likes of Barry Goldwater, who saw a communist in anyone who disagreed with government explanations of the "threat" from the Soviet Union. The notion that the Soviet Union was a threat to U.S. security was groundless, since the Soviet Union barely survived World War II in tact. As everyone also knows, it col lapsed in our own time, due to the heavy burden of military spending imposed by the arms race with the United States. We must not forget that the U.S. had as its main ally during the Cold War period the rump state of West Germany. This was the surviving part of a country which had invad ed the Soviet Union in 1941 and whose armies were responsible for murdering and starving at least 20 million Soviet citizens. The Germany which the U.S. re-armed in 1954 was a country whose leaders, apart from the socialists, were either former Nazis or had had close ties to the Nazi party. A good example is Kurt Georg Kiesinger, a con servative politician who became Chancellor of West Germany in 1966. He had been a Nazi party member and had worked in the propaganda department of the party. These men and others like them were the leaders of the country which the United States turned against the Soviet Union. The Times report also details how the CIA overthrew the democratic government of Guatemala in 1954, though the government had not sought Soviet aid, and was not in any way a threat to U.S. security. It had, however, confiscated land belonging to the United Fruit Company. The CIA then installed a regime in Guatemala which is unsurpassed in brutali ty. It has ruled the native population by ter ror for the last 40 years. This terror is graphi cally described by Susanne Jonas in The Bat tle for Guatemala (1991). She writes about a recent attack by the Guatemalan army on a village of natives: "At about 1:00pm, the soldiers began to fire at the women inside the small church. The majority did not die there, but were sep arated from their children, taken to their homes in groups, and killed, the majority with machetes .... Then they returned to kill the children, whom they had left crying and screaming by themselves, without their mothers .... The soldiers cut open the children's stomachs with knives or they grabbed the children's little legs and smashed their heads with heavy sticks" (p. 145). The report in the Times merely confirms what anyone who has read about U.S. policy during the Cold War period already knows. It was no secret that the government created an atmosphere of psychological terror during the 50s and that it was the CIA which had in vented the Red menance. This was re-invented as the "evil empire" by Ronald Reagan and his friends like Phil Gramm. Nor was it a secret the the United States collaborated with ex-Nazis to build up West Germany. Nor was it a secret that the United States had overthrown the govern ment in Guatemala, and that it was the CIA which trained and even commanded the death squads which were responsible for murdering the local population of indige nous peoples. These reports are important because they confirm what critics, let's say "left" or "liber al" critics, of U.S. foreign policy had said all along: namely, that the Cold War was mostly a hoax, and the aim of U.S. foreign policy was not to spread democracy, but to protect U.S. business interests by any means avail able, including murdering children. The Cold WAr is over. A&M was at the forefront of fighting the Cold War, and it was at the forefront of spreading Cold War ideol ogy. It supported cold warriors such as Ronald Reagan, and it founded an institute (the Mosher Institute for Defense Studies) to keep the Cold War going after it was almost over. I hope that A&M can take a new turn, and that the Mosher Institute can be replaced by an institute for peace studies. The aim of the institute would be to prepare Aggies for the cause of peace: to help demobilize the mili tary; and it should also prepare Aggies to struggle for the cause of justice, to see in the terror regimes of Latin America the real threat to American ideals. Michael Kraft,PhD Bryan